


Lemongrass

by gondorsfinest



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, But Spock is an anxious little shit, Drama, Fluff, High School AU, Humor, M/M, Reconnecting as adults, high school sweethearts, i'm convinced sarek wouldn't even have minded, this is all over the place but it's concise and wholesome and i promise you'll love it!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 19:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12282654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gondorsfinest/pseuds/gondorsfinest
Summary: Twenty years later, Jim finds his seat on the business class flight from Chicago to San Francisco and there he is, with the same quiet certainty, his legs crossed, looking up from a novel.





	Lemongrass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luftballons99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luftballons99/gifts).



> For the lovely @luftballons99, the Chekov to my Sulu. Hope this delivers on all the spontaneously made promises! Everyone else is also heavily encouraged to leave a comment, it means a lot! Tell me your favorite section or sentence or aspect :D

 

 

He smells the same. Ironically, it’s the first thing Jim notices.

Spock’s hair always smelled the same. Soap, salt, and something he couldn’t name.

At school, the scent reminded him of the dirty things they’d done under the dusty skies in an even dustier pick up truck.

As they were doing those things, it reminded him that five hours later, the school bell would ring and nobody would have any idea why they looked so tired. McCoy would blame Jim’s rather eccentric understanding of a sleeping schedule. Uhura would chastise Spock for putting late night study sessions before his health. And they’d look at each other across the wobbling seats and the creaking chairs, and they’d know.

Twenty years later, he smells just as he did, except this time Jim recognizes the scent and doesn’t have to settle for something as mushy as ‚love‘ or something as nondescript as ‚fresh‘. Twenty years later, Jim finds his seat on the business class flight from Chicago to San Francisco and there he is, with the same quiet certainty, his legs crossed, looking up from a novel.

Jim is supposed to meet his newest transfer at the San Francisco docking station. One week of shore leave, and a new science officer on departure day. He hasn’t yet opened the file on the new guy; he was going to read it on the flight. Except now he won’t be able to read anything.

His knees are week.

„Hello Jim“, says Spock, because he’s suave and intelligent.

Jim thinks of fifty answers that are much suaver and much more intelligent, and then he opens his mouth and says, „Lemongrass.“ Spock just stares, and he flushes under the gaze like a school boy. „Your hair. I always wondered what… It’s lemongrass. I just realized. Hi.“

„Hello“, Spock says again.

Spock usually never repeats himself.

 

 

-

 

 

He transfers for Senior Year. His father is on a diplomatic mission on earth, stationed for a year. A different kind of army brat, Jim thinks, and after a while he catches himself thinking other things.

It doesn’t take long until he makes some awkward advances.

He invites Spock to dinner. Or a concert. Roller-skating. Ice Cream. Drive in cinemas are big this fall. Maybe he likes libraries. He seems like the type to like libraries. Jim knows a nice one in Minneapolis, maybe they could go on the weekend. (He says all of the above within twenty-six seconds, peppered with many ‚just-an-idea’s and ‚if-you-want’s and ‚don’t-take-this-the-wrong-way’s in between). Spock blinks a little and asks him if he gets to pick the order. Jim, who hadn’t expected Spock to agree at all, nearly passes out.

They go on dates, and they talk about dreams and bands and school and life. They plan for now. And for now, it’s quite good.

It’s a bright little lighthouse amidst a busy year, something to tap softly in passing and smile at the sight.

Jim’s heart is a spinning top, and it glows like light-up sketchers.

He is hellbent on telling everyone, but Spock is so hesitant it would break Jim’s heart a little, if that could happen to a badass eighteen year old with a motorbike license and a leather jacket.

„My father wouldn’t approve“, Spock murmurs into his hair as they lazily kiss the afternoon away.

Who ever came up with the idea of making love in a corn field anyway? Jim feels terribly itchy, even on the thick picnic blanket, and the sun burns directly into his eyes. It’s so bright it almost makes him tear up. Stupid sun. „What, because I’m a guy?“

„No, no. Because you’re human“, Spock says.

„Oh.“ Somehow, that feels worse.

„Are you… crying?“

„Nah, that’s my hay fever or something. You know how I’m allergic to everything.“

So they don’t talk about it. They greet each other in school. When Uhura and McCoy sit together at lunch, they sit with them because Jim is friends with McCoy and Spock is friends with Uhura, and it would be weird to not tag along. To everyone else, they’re strangers. Civil, but barely acquainted.

Sometimes Jim will tell McCoy he’s going for a coffee run, and Spock will slip out of the classroom a couple of minutes later, and they’ll steal kisses in the third bathroom stall to the left.December 31st, twelve minutes after midnight, they lock themselves in Hikaru’s garden shed and kiss for an hour before Spock passes out from too much cocoa. Jim takes him home and his mother thanks him, almost knowingly. Spock buys Jim dinner as a thank you, and they choose a restaurant three towns over.

The months pass.

Jim doodles Spock’s initials on his desk with erasable ink. Spock watches, and looks desperately unhappy.

 

 

-

 

 

„You’re my transfer? I had no idea you were even in Starfleet.“ Jim is on his third glass of complimentary champagne. He normally doesn’t drink as much, but he’s about to lose his mind and alcohol is usually a good scapegoat. When Spock doesn’t answer, he laughs at the sudden revelation, but it doesn’t come out right. It doesn’t sound amused. „You must have remembered that I applied, though. Why didn’t you call? Drop me a message? A comm? Anything? Hi, this is Spock, I used to sit on your lap in high school?“

Spock doesn’t seem to find that funny. He’s been reserved ever since Jim sat down, but he has the same fidgety hands that he had two decades ago, and that tells Jim he’s not as unaffected as he acts. „I understand you’re not free.“

„What do you mean?“

„I assume you meant a romantic reconnection. It was at no point my intention to be your… affair, or…“

It’s very rare for Spock to not finish his sentences, which makes the entire discussion even more absurd.

What on earth is he talking about?

„What on earth are you talking about?“

Spock takes out his tablet and opens his logbook page. Structured as a page that is half social network, half official Starfleet website, it contains all the information Jim’s allowed to give out. His ship. His rank. His graduation year. He scrolls down until he sees the little blue word behind ‚Marital Status‘. Against better judgement, he begins to bellow with laughter.

Spock looks crestfallen. „I fail to see the humorous aspect of -“

„It’s a joke. Stars, a stupid joke was the reason you never…?“ It’s about time he explained, but he’s honestly speechless. After he has calmed down, he closes the website. „Bones said I was practically married to the ship, one thing led to another, I got it into my head to try and be funny, and… I had no idea anyone would take it seriously. I changed it a while ago, I wasn’t even aware that it was still on the internet…“

„You’re not married?“

Jim shakes his head, and presents his hands, bare and creaseless. „Married to the Enterprise, but otherwise, no.“

Spock’s tone is more conciliatory now, even though his face still looks as though he understands absolutely nothing. „If one thinks about it, that is…“

„Logical?“, Jim suggests.

„No. But it is, as humans would say, very you.“

„You could have written anyway“, Jim probes cautiously. If Spock was deterred by his ‚marriage‘, that must mean he didn’t want to reach out for the purpose of connecting with an old school friend. His pulse speeds up as he makes the conclusion. Maybe all the years he spent wondering what Spock was up to at the Vulcan Science Academy… All the time he was messing around with anyone who made him feel a bit less lonely… Sure, Spock has just been reassigned. They wouldn’t have seen each other much. Still. It feels odd. It feels like them. They’ve had another secret relationship, except this time neither of them were aware of it.

„I didn’t want to…“

„Get your hopes up?“, Jim supplies.

„Don’t flatter yourself“, Spock says coldly, and he can taste the pride in every syllable.

Jim bites his lip. Something is stuck in his throat. He can taste the residue from the bullet he swallowed in a parking lot; sweaty palms, cheap suit, stumbling pulse. An admission. Something thirty-nine year olds don’t say, but neither no nineteen-year olds, and either way - someone ought to say it at some point.

So he’s thirty-nine. So what. He takes a deep breath.

„I missed you.“

 

 

-

 

 

They have agreed to say goodbye on prom night, because Spock is leaving the next day. He’s asked Jim to see him off at the docking station, but Jim said no. He’ll cry in front of everyone, and then the entire school will know, and he really doesn’t need that kind of talk, even if he’ll be out of here by next month. McCoy is also joining Starfleet, and he’d never let Jim hear the end of it. Not that McCoy would mind, but that's not the point.

Jim has forgotten what the point is.

„So“, he yells over the music, after they’ve successfully avoided one another for a good two hours. „The Vulcan Science Academy.“

„Pardon?“, Spock yells back.

„I SAID, THE VULCAN SCIENCE ACADEMY.“

„WHAT ABOUT IT?“

„NOTHING. YOU’RE GOING, RIGHT?“

Spock decides to drag Jim outside by his arm. „I thought we weren’t going together.“

„We’re not. I’m just trying to have a conversation. I’ve had about three conversations with everyone else, it would look weird if we didn’t talk all night.“

„Makes sense.“ Jim knows that’s Vulcan for _‚I know you believe it makes sense and I’m trying to be diplomatic without having to lie about whether or not your argument was logical. (It wasn’t.)'_

People are walking around all over the parking lot, some waiting for their parents, some making their way to their cars. No privacy. As always.

„My mother is coming to pick me up in ten minutes“, Spock says, obviously not expecting any sort of emotional reaction.

„Okay“, says Jim, and fervently wishes he were dead. And because he doesn’t know what else to say, he clears his throat and repeats his words from before. „You’re going to the VSA, then? Next year?“ He knows the answer. They’ve discussed this about a million times.

Spock answers anyway. „Provided I pass the required examinations.“

„You will. Of course you will.“ His ears are popping from the sudden absence of the loud music. Losing Spock feels like that. Like a song that’s gotten so loud you don’t even notice it’s gotten into your head, and when you walk away from it, the entire world seems numb for a while.

„Thank you.“

„Maybe“, Jim says desperately, „maybe you could apply to Starfleet as well. Just for fun. To see if you get a better entrance score than me.“

He’s wanted to join Starfleet since he was ten. Spock knows that, and Jim knows that Spock has never even considered it. Nevertheless, Spock tilts his head politely. „That is a possibility.“

It’s not and they both know it.

He wants to tell Spock that he’ll miss him, but he can’t say that out loud without doing everything that goes along with it. The whole shebang. Tears and kissing and all of that. Out of the corner of his eye, he counts sixteen people in the parking lot. Bad timing.

„Bye then“, Jim says. His voice is raspy. „Ugh. All the screaming inside“, he groans. Spock has the decency to not call him out on the lie.

They hug for a few seconds. Just long enough for it to count as platonic. He casually pats Spock’s back, and it feels utterly wrong. Then Jim turns around and goes back inside, and all the while he wishes he could come over to Spock’s place tonight, and sleep next to him until it’s time to leave. Nothing more. Just fall asleep, and stay asleep, until everything has magically sorted itself out.

 

 

-

 

 

By the end of the flight, Spock has napped against his shoulder, then against the airplane window, then in his lap, and Jim is more confused than ever but also a little hopeful. As they sit down to wait for their luggage, Spock turns to him. „Your ship is a good career opportunity. Do you think there’s any possibility for me being promoted?“

He catches on right away. „Depends on how things work out, but I’d predict the chances are rather good.“

„I’ll work my way up. I’m patient.“ Spock holds his gaze, smiling. They still function the same way. Two computers with different programming languages, in perfect sync, and they always understand the little hints just right, just enough to never have a matter-of-fact conversation.

Unless he doesn’t understand.

Unless Jim is simply old and desperate and can’t even recognize a professional conversation anymore.

He’s been alone for so long he’s started to talk himself while shaving. He’s drinking too much for Bones to ignore. He’s even showing first signs of a pot belly. Spock having any interest in an old, overworked sad sack like him is by all means completely illogical. But he can’t help it. He can never help it when Spock’s around, when his hands lay in his lap like sleeping doves and his gaze is open, interested, almost warm; and he smells this good -

„I’m still interested, if that wasn’t clear“, Jim says hastily.

„It was.“

„Okay.“

And Spock grins at him like a seventeen-year-old and nods over to the exit, towards the people and the parking lots and the toilets and the bakeries. „Are you perhaps in the mood for a coffee run?“

Jim sighs, even though his heart leaps with anticipation. „I’m too old to make out in an airport bathroom.“

„I was thinking more along the lines of sitting down in a coffee house and letting our drinks get cold as we catch up on lost time.“

„You“, he licks his lips. „What - you mean, in public?“

„Some things do change“, says Spock, his eyes bright as they call him home. „Even though I admit that I still wear the same shampoo.“

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @gondorsfinest


End file.
